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Jan. 2, 2025 13:59-14:55 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal Frank Buckley

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unidentified		Tuesday evening.
		On Wednesday, President Carter will again lie in state at the U.S. Capitol before being transported Thursday to the Washington Cathedral for a funeral service.
		Later in the day, the former president will take his last trip home to be buried at the Carter family home in Georgia.
		We'll show these events live on the C-SPAN networks, streaming online at c-span.org and on the free C-SPAN Now video app.
		Starting shortly here on C-SPAN, President Biden will be delivering remarks from the White House on his 235th confirmed federal judicial nomination.
		You can also watch live coverage on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-SPAN.org.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're joined now by Frank Buckley, who is the author of The Roots of Liberalism, What Faithful Knights and the Little Match Girl Taught Us About Civic Virtue as part of our holiday author series.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome to Washington Journal.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So the main title of your book, The Roots of Liberalism, can you define liberalism in your book's content?
unidentified		Well, that's the whole point.
		I don't think I can.
		I mean, look, I'm an academic and I get really tired of theories.
		So I started to look at liberalism because that's kind of the American tradition.
		And what I discovered first of all was that, you know, definitions, theories weren't going to cut it.
		But what I had to do instead was look at stories in our culture, people in our culture, and that told me what I was looking for.
		So it was a matter of instinctively reacting to things that we regard in our culture as noble, as uplifting, as liberal, in short.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So then let's talk about the subtitle.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Who were the faithful knights and why the little match girl?
unidentified		Well, yeah, yeah, the point is, you know, those stories take you to weird places.
		So one of them was like Knights in Shining Armor, okay?
		And I'll tell you a little story.
		After the First Gulf War, Colin Powell was called to testify before Congress.
		And he was told, he was asked, why didn't you go to Baghdad?
		Because we didn't the first time, right?
		And what Powell said was, well, at that point, the entire Iraqi army was destroyed.
		There was nothing left.
		The way to Baghdad was open.
		We could have gone there.
		I mean, it was just a highway of death.
		But he said, in the circumstances, doing that would have been unchivalrous and un-American.
		And so I thought, there's a tradition of chivalry that's built into the U.S. military and, you know, British military, you know, modern militaries.
		And that goes all the way back.
		It goes back to, for example, the story I looked at was the Black Knight.
		Okay, so this is like 1370.
		And he's led an English raid in France.
		And he's surrounded by the French army.
		He's got a small force and he defeats them all.
		And he captures the French king and all the French nobles.
		And at night, the captives are served dinner by the Black Prince, the son of Edward I.
		And he acts like a servant and he says, you know, King John of France, you know, you shouldn't be sad.
		You've won more honor today than anybody else.
		So he went out of his way to make his defeated enemy feel good about himself.
		That's basic to the idea of chivalry.
		The idea is magnanimity.
		That's a proto-version of the Geneva Convention.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We have an excerpt here from your book.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you just read this little portion about it, which gets to this idea of chivalry?
unidentified		On the title, the first one.
		Okay.
		Liberalism is not an abstract theory, but a tradition of virtues and customs embedded in our culture.
		We learned magnanimity from the code of chivalry and were taught that brutishness is liberal from the code of the gentleman.
		Through the stories of Hans Christian Anderson and the novels of Charles Dickens, kindness became a liberal virtue.
		The Republican virtue of the founders can be traced back to 12th century CNA merchants.
		Liberalism was born of the virtues and does not threaten them.
		So that was my idea.
		It's not a grand theory.
		I mean, virtues are not something you define as a theory.
		But liberalism, that which is roughly noble in our culture, is found not in theories, but in all those stories and people in our culture.
		And, you know, your prior program was on kind of curing the political wounds in our society.
		And I thought, what better way would there be to do that than for all of us to recognize that we're all part of that tradition?
		And that civilizes us and teaches us how to behave to people on the other side.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You describe in your book the confusion surrounding the real meaning of liberalism.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by that?
unidentified		Well, it's a term which is hijacked by partisans left and right.
		And I was looking for a kind of liberalism that's neither left nor right, but that embraces both.
		I'm going, you know, look, so I've got a few years on me, more than you.
		I go back to Kuhnskin caps and hula hoops in the Eisenhower era.
		And I'm remembering a time when everybody was a liberal, and we disagreed about certain things, but they were technical things.
		And reasonable people were permitted to differ.
		But on basic questions, right, there was no disagreement.
		And that, it seemed to me, had been missing in recent years.
		So when I wrote the book, I wrote it kind of against the gray, and I wrote it at a time when a lot of people seemed to be giving up on the idea of liberalism, both right and left.
		And that, I thought, was dangerous.
		And I thought the way to cure, to heal our political wounds would be for us to recognize that which we have in common, which is our liberal tradition.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, sometimes you hear, and you've mentioned that the term has been a bit hijacked by partisans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What would you use to distinguish liberalism from progressivism from another term that's very popular, wokeism?
unidentified		Well, you know, I don't like to get hung up on terms in part because I think it's kind of boring to start dumping on people, but there's a lot of that going on.
		You know, we don't need more of that, right?
		So, yeah, I'm in favor of progress, and I'm in favor of a whole bunch of things that, you know, diversity and so on.
		I don't see anything particularly wrong with that.
		Everything taken to the extreme becomes positively evil.
		So we don't want to do that.
		But with a spirit of moderation, we could probably all agree on most things.
		So I'm not going to get hung up on labels particularly, except that when I got started this, I realized, wait a minute, these guys are not liberal.
		And let's try to get back to that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Who is these guys?
unidentified		These guys.
unidentified		You're pressing me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Sorry.
unidentified		That's your job.
		Well, There is an intolerance strain, particularly in recent years, I thought, on the left, and people who were self-satisfied, smug, censorious, and all of that.
		All of these things they used to accuse the right of being.
		And they had become that themselves.
		So let's get away from that.
		As for people on the right who wanted to give up on liberalism, you know, maybe they should realize that if they're objecting to the censoriousness on the left, they're asserting the primacy of liberal values.
		They're saying, you guys are illiberal.
		Well, okay, that means you like liberalism.
		In fact, in America, there's just a liberal tradition.
		There's not a conservative tradition.
		There's a liberal tradition.
		It goes back to the founders.
		It goes back to the Declaration of Independence.
		It goes back to speeches by Abraham Lincoln.
		That's what unites us.
		Indeed, that's what makes us Americans.
		To the extent you don't believe in that, you're less an American.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Would you mind reading that next excerpt from your book?
unidentified		Okay, you're putting me to work.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I am.
unidentified		Liberalism rests on a foundation of civic virtue and the desire of citizens or public officials to promote the common good.
unidentified		The antonym of civic virtue is public corruption.
gen barry mccaffrey ▲ ● ▼		It's not corrupt a favor of subsets of society where it's just to do so, for example, to alleviate poverty or to correct an historical wrong.
unidentified		But that apart, the voter or official who unjustly favors a part only of society is corrupt and reveals himself to be a liberal.
		He is in the public realm like the faithless employee in the private realm who steals from his employer.
		I guess I'm making a point about something that's special about liberalism, and that's the idea of a universal ethic.
		So the alternative of that is tribalism.
		The alternative is only my tribe counts or only my gender counts, whatever.
		And that's not even a moral theory, right?
		To count as a moral theory, it seems to me you have to say something like everybody counts as one, nobody counts as more than one.
		So in taking a look at the common good, I think we have to pay particular attention to people who are left behind, but we have to take everybody into account.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's place your book into the context of the presidential election, your views on President-elect Trump and his promise to make America great again and the context of this discussion around liberalism.
unidentified		I don't think there's anything particularly liberal about the desire to make a country great.
		In fact, that can be the source of illiberalism.
		Historically, it has been.
		It's a sort of thing which propels a Napoleon to invade all of Europe and all of that.
		But there's another side to liberalism and our liberal tradition.
		Historically, our tradition of equality in the Declaration, which is liberal.
		And the idea there is that if you're liberal, you should be feeling a sense of brotherhood, at least to everybody else in your society and your nation.
		So there's a kind of liberal nationalism where you look at people who are left behind and you say, now this has got to be fixed.
		So, you know, if you see someone who desperately needs help of one kind or another, you could say it's not just that that should happen.
		We should try to fix that.
		But you'll get more mileage both politically and morally, I think, if you want to say it's not just that an American should live like that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's listen to a bit of President-elect Trump's election night victory speech.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We're going to make our country better than it ever has been.
		I said that.
		Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason.
		And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.
		And now we are going to fulfill that mission together.
		We're going to fulfill that mission.
		The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fight that I have in my soul to the job that you've entrusted to me.
		This is a great job.
		There's no job like this.
		This is the most important job in the world.
		Just as I did in my first term, we had a great first term, a great, great first term.
		I will govern by a simple motto: promises made, promises kept.
unidentified		We're going to keep our promises.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Nothing will stop me from keeping my word to you, the people.
		We will make America safe, strong, prosperous, powerful, and free again.
		And I'm asking every citizen all across our land to join me in this noble and righteous endeavor.
		That's what it is.
		It's time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us.
		It's time to unite.
		And we're going to try.
		We're going to try.
		We have to try.
		And it's going to happen.
		Success will bring us together.
		I've seen that.
		I've seen that.
		I saw that in the first term.
		When we became more and more successful, people started coming together.
		Success is going to bring us together.
		And we are going to start by all putting America first.
		We have to put our country first for at least a period of time.
		We have to fix it.
		Because together we can truly make America great again for all Americans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, I'd like to contrast that speech for you with a portion of Vice President Harris's concession speech last month, where she advised her supporters not to despair, especially the folks who think that the nation is entering a dark time.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's listen to that, and then I'd like to get your thoughts.
kamala harris ▲ ● ▼		You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world.
		And so to everyone who is watching, do not despair.
		This is not a time to throw up our hands.
		This is a time to roll up our sleeves.
		This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.
		Look, many of you know, I started out as a prosecutor, and throughout my career, I saw people at some of the worst times in their lives.
		People who had suffered great harm and great pain and yet found within themselves the strength and the courage and the resolve to take the stand, to take a stand, to fight for justice, to fight for themselves, to fight for others.
		So let their courage be our inspiration.
		Let their determination be our charge.
		And I'll close with this.
		There's an adage an historian once called a law of history.
		True of every society across the ages.
		The adage is, only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.
		I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case.
		But here's the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.
		The light.
		The light of optimism, of faith, of truth, and service.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, I know that traditionally, especially in the political narrative that we have, people would associate what Trump was saying with conservatism and what Harris was saying with liberalism.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		If we apply your framework, where do those two speeches fit?
unidentified		Well, I didn't see either of them as being representative of, you know, one thing or another.
		These were simply partisan politicians, period.
		You know, when I went through my little rambling tour of our history, one thing that struck out was something called the investiture crisis, which is 800 years ago.
		And the idea was that was a signal moment when there was a separation of church and state, right?
		And I'm on the side of that separation in the sense that I want to say that it's important to have something other than politics to guide your life.
		So one of our problems, it seems to me, has been the relative disappearance of religion as a way of going through life and reflecting upon your place in the world and your conduct.
		Apart from politics.
		So what you just put on the screen doesn't define me one way or another.
		Let me say one other thing on the subject of, this is Trump now, and prosperity.
		Liberalism is on the side of prosperity, I think.
		There is that connection historically.
		I mean, liberalism has meant free markets and the like.
		It's meant the abolition of slavery.
		It's meant the abolition of things that prevent people from bargaining with one another and getting ahead.
		And there are two aspects to prosperity that are important.
		The first is that when people are prosperous, they're making each other better off, and that's a good thing.
		And the second thing about a prosperous society is a welfare system is the kind of a luxury good for a rich society.
		If you want to have a decent welfare state, you want to have a rich society, right?
		And so you have to be on the side of prosperity yourself.
		That therefore should be something that unites us.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We are ready to take your questions for Mr. Buckley on his book and on the topic of liberalism more generally.
		Our number for Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We're going to start with Lou in Highland Park, Illinois on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Lou.
unidentified		Good morning, Mr. Buckley.
		Hi, Lou.
		I'm wondering if you could be totally and 100% specific when you discuss liberalism as far as money, taxes, education, health care.
		I think a lot of people in our country think in terms of how much we have to give one side and take from the other.
		I'd like you to maybe expound on some of that.
		Well, one thing you're not going to get from me, I'm sorry, is 100% precision.
		I mean, you know, you realize that's impossible.
		I think that what one tries to do is have a society which both is prosperous and which can afford the kind of social programs you're describing.
		So there's a balancing that goes on here.
		Veer too much on one side.
		For example, there was a thought four years back, we could spend as much money as we wanted and that we wouldn't have such a thing as inflation.
		And right, with the benefit of history, that's been disproven.
		So we work our way kind of murkily through all of these things without any kind of clearer guidance as to where we're going, but with a vague goal at the end of it all.
		And we don't get better than that, I don't think.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You know, our caller mentioned sort of the role of money in politics a bit.
		And I want to direct your attention to an article in The Atlantic by Franklin Forer about what is referred to here as the unique danger of a Trumpist oligarchy.
		A corrupt cabal of billionaires would entangle themselves with the Trump administration and form a double-barreled threat to the American system.
		I'll read a bit of that.
		The Trumpist oligarchy that is taking shape is far different from the post-Soviet strain.
		What makes it distinct is that Trump is entering into a partnership with the most powerful technologists in the world.
		But the core problem of oligarchy is the same.
		The symbiotic relationship between a corrupt leader and a business elite always entails the trading of favors.
		The regime does the bidding of the billionaires, and in turn, the billionaires do the bidding of the regime.
		Power grows ever more concentrated as the owners and the corrupt leaders conspire to protect their mutual hold on it.
		In short order, this arrangement has the potential to deliver a double blow to the American system.
		It could undermine capitalism and erode democracy all at once.
		This was back in November.
unidentified		That's going to happen immediately, isn't it?
		I mean, like the day after the inauguration, it's all over.
		I think the thing about pundits is what you have to realize is, number one, they tend to be totally partisan, and number two, they tend to be completely chiliastic, right?
		The end of the world is happening.
		So I noticed that what Foer mentioned were, you know, buzzwords meant to inflame his constituents, I suppose I could call them, right?
		I mean, you have to mention Russia somehow in all of this, and you have to talk about dark money, and you have to talk about the threat to democracy.
		And you put it all together, and you have a kind of a word salad which roughly represents pretty much everything everybody on the left has said in the last eight years or so.
		And forgive me, but I'm going to just wait and see what happens.
		And I'm skeptical about doomsayers.
		I am sympathetic to people who talk about money and politics, although I think we should recognize when, before we start talking about the evils of dark money, for example, the Democrats vastly outspent the Republicans in the last election in terms of dark money.
		It's not the case that anybody has moral standing here to complain.
		The pretension of moral standing, you know, the sneer on the lips of people who tell you that they're pure and you're not.
		I've kind of had enough of that.
		So, yeah, I'd like to see, I'm not a fan of American campaign finance laws, but that's simply the road we've gone down.
		And what has happened, I mean, this is a legal question which we're not going to get into, but there's kind of a trade-off here between corruption and liberty.
		All right.
		And we've taken the stand in favor of liberty, and we're going to accept a certain amount of corruption.
		I wish it were otherwise, but then that's just the way it is.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's hear from Henry in Fort Grashett, Michigan on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Henry.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Mr. Buckley, I think, is kind of like a little bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing.
		If you look at his last name, it's Buckley, so that might be a little bit about him.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		No, it doesn't actually tell us anything about him.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What's your question, Henry?
unidentified		Okay, I digress.
		I'd like to do a little simple exercise and try to distill this a little bit more, Mr. Buckley.
		I'm going to mention some phrases, little words or phrases from the Constitution of the United States.
		And I want you to tell me if that word or phrase comports mostly with a Democratic side or a Republican side.
		It's simple.
		No, we don't have to have any kind of discussion.
		Just tell me if this comports more with the Democratic side or the Republican side.
		You ought yes or no, huh?
		I just want Democrat, Republican.
		So does that sort of define your world?
		Okay, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Henry, can you maybe give us the direct point that you're trying to make or a specific question?
		I understand the exercise you want him to go through, but what are you trying to share?
		What's your perspective here?
unidentified		Well, Henry, if I can answer you, the more perfect union was a reference to the Articles of Confederation of 1781.
		Can I speak?
		Can I speak?
		I only get 30 days to call, and most of the time I can't even get in.
		You got a guy from the UK that gets in every other day.
		So I'm just trying to show the difference between liberals and quote-unquote conservatives or Confederates.
		Now, I consider myself a liberal.
		I was raised to respect all people, to love as many people as I can possibly through religious beliefs that I have.
		But you have made me digress away from what I was trying to do.
		All men are created equal.
		Is that Democrat?
		Does it comport more with Democrats or Republicans?
		I'd like to think both, actually, but I certainly don't disagree with the sentiment.
		You say both.
		Okay.
		All right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So we're not going to go line by line to the whole thing, Henry.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want you to make your larger point if you have another, and then we're going to go to some other callers.
unidentified		Okay, let me make this last point.
		Mr. Buckley mentioned campaign finance rules, and you read that beautiful, beautiful passage from the article about oligarchs and the evils of money in politics.
		Our judicial system is broken.
		Our executive branch is broken and our legislative branch is broken because of money in politics, because of this coming oligarchy, because the United States has elected a criminal who is a rich man, who has rich people behind him.
		And this is not liberalism.
		This is not conservatism.
		This is pure evil.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I think we've got your idea.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Did you have any response?
unidentified		No, maybe I'm a little thick here, but it seems to me you don't like Trump.
		Is that the case?
		I don't know.
		Look, I'm not going to get into the raw politics of it all.
		But it seems to me that besides Democrats and Republicans, there's something else going on here.
		And that's the American voter.
		And I think generally the American voter gets it right.
		I mean, yeah, they've gotten it wrong on occasion, sure.
		But if I go through, you know, elections in the last century, mostly it turned out okay, right?
		When people, you know, veer off too much in one side, there's a correction administered by the voters.
		So I see the voters as the repository of liberal virtues in all of this.
		They're a third party.
		I'll put my faith in them.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Ryan is in Orange, Massachusetts on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Ryan.
unidentified		Hi.
		I think your book's very interesting.
		But does your book differentiate between modern liberalism, like near the recent election, and liberalism as thought in like the 1930s?
		Because what I've noticed is a huge change in the Democratic Party.
		Now, I'm a former Democrat, turned independent.
		I voted for Trump in the last election.
		And personally, I think that the Democratic Party should go back to the values of FDR and not the values of woke, transgender, and et cetera.
		I'd like to know your thoughts on that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Before you give your thoughts, would you mind reading that last excerpt from your book, which I think kind of gets, yes, directly to it.
unidentified		Okay.
		Forget labels.
		Sorry, I've been directed to read this.
		The WooCorati call themselves liberals, but are anything but that, if there's any content of the word.
		They decry prejudice, but perpetuate stereotypes about white males and evangelical Christians.
		They tell us that you have to become a racist to oppose racism.
		They imagine themselves standing up to Joe McCarthy, but practice McCarthyism when they call millions of Republicans fascists and demand that they be silenced.
		They tell us that they value free speech, but deny it to conservative speakers on college campuses.
		And I cut off Mario Savio would have been outraged by all of that.
		Yeah, Ryan, I agree with you totally.
		I hanker for an earlier time.
		I thought FDR was great.
		I liked Harry Truman.
		I liked JFK.
		I liked Dwight Eisenhower.
		I guess I'm old enough to hanker back to an age where there were differences, but they were differences that made people hate each other.
		So, you know, I think what happened in the last election was the American voters delivered a bit of a corrective to the Democratic Party.
		And my hope is that they learn and adjust accordingly.
		Because if they don't, we may be looking at a long, long period of a Republican-dominant government.
		And that's not healthy.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's go to Benjamin in Huntsville, Alabama, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Benjamin.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to make a statement.
		Inherent in the very definition of liberalism are seeds of conflict.
		The ideas of progressivism, individualism, free market economics, and Christian theology are all used in the definition of liberalism and they do not harmonize with each other.
		This definition limits the possibility for the conceptualization of a clearer and more expansive and comprehensive view of what liberalism is and how it should be manifest.
		The execution of the ideas expressed in the definition of liberalism cannot peacefully coexist.
		Can you come in on this idea?
		Well, they can coexist peacefully.
		I don't think liberalism, you know, the opposite of liberalism, it seems to me, is a state which mandates a particular kind of policy from which you can't dissent.
		You know, what is, I think, basic to liberalism is a continuing discussion about how we get to where we want to go.
		Liberals may have a broad agreement about goals, but as to the means to get there, there is plenty of room for disagreement.
		So I think here it's important to recognize one of the things that liberalism requires is tolerance for the other side and a willingness to learn and a measure of uncertainty and self-doubt about your own righteousness and your own knowledge and your own ideas.
		There was this great moment in the founders' Framers' Convention in 1787.
		Right at the end, Benjamin Franklin is there.
		And Franklin wants a Constitution.
		And this is the last day.
		And there are some people who are going to opt out.
		There are some people who are not going to sign the document.
		And what Franklin says is essentially, you know, have some self-doubt about your own righteousness, about your own clarity, your own moral clarity, right?
		You know, admit that you might possibly be wrong and other people might be right.
		And if you do that, you'll sign the document.
		I like that.
		That was an element of liberalism.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's hear from David in Memphis, Tennessee, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Oh, hi.
		Good morning.
		And Mr. Buckley, I wanted to say I think you're muddying the waters, and that disturbs me.
		I'd have to read your book to confirm it.
		But my understanding is that any word that ends with ISM means it has an overemphasis.
		For example, communism is an overemphasis on the collective.
		Capitalism, it's an overemphasis on the exploitation of capital.
		And you have some presidents in your history that I also liked.
		I think, well, Truman and Kennedy were nationalists, and militarism characterized their budget plans, but they were not isolationists, to my knowledge, to the way I've read my history.
		And so you have those terms that I do believe can be attributed to Trump and the magnets, isolationism, nationalism, and militarism.
		And to Harris and the Democrats, I think you have progressivism and liberalism, but I think you've muddied the lawyers by not determining that anything that ends with ISM is an overemphasis.
		And so you're trying to de-emphasize that, which by its nature is being overemphasized.
		What do you say?
		Well, David, I loved everything.
		I loved your beginning, but then the word but, you know, emerged.
		I hate it when people do that, okay?
		But you know something?
		On the subject of isms, I think, you know, you're largely right, but how about the word moralism?
		I mean, you got a problem with that?
		I don't think so.
		So it's not the ISM, but things that go before it.
		Your point is, I think, however, valid.
		The point is, you take anything and you push it too far and it goes off the rails.
		And I think that's true.
		So one of the complaints that people on the right have made about liberalism is they identify it with the idea that, you know, anything anybody does is okay, right?
		Which is destructive of morals completely.
		So that would have been an example of taking liberalism too far, for example.
		So I think one wants to step back and admit that implicit in liberalism is the ability to question liberalism itself.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		While we're talking about isms, you've also discussed in your book, or kind of get at it, the idea of populism, right?
		And earlier this month, outgoing Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, who's well known for his liberal views, delivered his farewell address to the Senate.
		He served 14 years in the U.S. House, followed by 18 in the Senate, was defeated in November.
		And here he discusses the idealism and what it means to him.
		And then I'd like to get your response.
unidentified		I've always looked at things a little differently, perhaps, than some.
		To me, politics is not really left or right or liberally conservative.
		It's really about whose side you're on and whom you're willing to, it's about whom you're willing to fight for, whom you're willing to stand up to.
		That's what true populism is all about.
		True populism lifts all people.
		True populism doesn't tear others down.
		True populism doesn't play to race and division.
		True populism is essentially about the dignity of work, putting workers at the center of all we should be doing.
		And when I talk about workers, I mean all workers, whether you swipe a badge or punch a clock, whether you work for tips or whether you work on salary, whether you're going to school or raising kids or caring for an aging parent.
		No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter what kind of work you do, your work has dignity.
		It ought to pay off for you and your family.
		We have that in common with all the differences we have as a country.
		We have work in common.
		Work is really what binds us.
		For too many people in Ohio and around the country, hard work hasn't paid off.
		Today, far too many workers don't see a path in the middle class, no matter how hard they work.
		For almost half a century, we know this.
		We know this.
		We should be challenging this.
		For half a century, the stock market soared.
		Executive compensation has exploded.
		Corporate profits have risen dramatically.
		Worker productivity has increased, but workers' wages have been comparatively flat and costs keep going up.
		Until we solve the fundamental problem in this country, until hard work is valued, until everyone has a path to the middle class and the stability and security of a good-paying job, our work in this body, my work as a private citizen come January, that work is unfinished.
		If you want to know why so many workers think the system's rigged against them, just look what happened three weeks ago in East Texas.
		To little fanfare, a single judge appointed by President Trump at the behest of the Texas Chamber of Commerce struck down a labor department rule which guaranteed overtime for workers making $35,000 or $40,000 a year.
		That ought to be a fundamental principle.
		If you put in extra hours, you ought to earn extra pay.
		You did the work, you earned it.
		One judge, one decision, four million workers lost their overtime.
		One judge, one decision, four million workers lost their overtime.
		That's why we make this fight.
		Well, I agree with everything that Senator Brown said, with the exception of that last bit about that judge in Texas, because I didn't follow that, frankly.
		I don't know what the issues are.
		But apart from that, I agreed with absolutely everything.
		I only have one minor quibble about the word populism.
		I don't like it because of its historical associations in this country with a lot of nasty people, you know, 120 years ago.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you elaborate just for folks who don't know?
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		So the Jim Crow laws were something associated with the populist movement back then.
		So, yeah, I have problems with that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		But the modern interpretation?
unidentified		Oh, gosh.
		Well, I don't know what the word means apart from that.
		There are plenty of terms in our American politics which almost seem to be devoid of content when you look carefully at them.
		That may be one of them.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Gina is in Alexandria, Virginia, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gina.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly and Mr. Buckley.
		I was trying to learn about your book to see if I want to purchase it or not.
		But however, I would just like to know, America has some kind of problem with the Muslim culture, which it surprises me that people aren't more curious because the Ottoman Empire lasted over 600 years.
		I don't believe America's culture is going to get to that because they were inclusive.
		They pulled in Christians, they pulled in Jews, and it seemed like they were just as liberal as they were conservative.
		And I don't see America working together hard enough or being curious enough to last that long.
		Even the Chinese culture has lasted thousands and thousands of years.
		And it seemed like the rest of the world has been watching America, waiting to pimp us out.
		But once they saw us doing it to ourselves, we're just a joke now.
		You know, it's like, and it's all about money.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Once Citizens United got in there, it's Gina, your point about sort of other historical traditions around chivalry and sort of rules.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Is that what you're asking him about?
unidentified		I'm asking him, does he think America is going to last as long as some of the other inclusive cultures that bring people in rather than separating people?
		I don't make those kinds of predictions, actually, Gina.
		But, you know, on the subject of immigration, I'm an immigrant, okay?
		So I came here from Canada.
		I became a citizen 10 years ago.
		So I'm necessarily on the side of immigration.
		Although, you know, the thing about immigrants is once we get in, we want to pull up the ladder.
		That's it, no more, okay?
		There was a speech Abraham Lincoln gave in 1858, which I really like.
		It was part of a Lincoln-Douglas debates.
		It was a July 4th speech given around July 4th.
		And he said, you know, all honor to the founders of the country.
		And he said, you know, there are some people here in this hall who are descendants, you know, flesh of the flesh of the people who fought in the revolution, you know.
		But then he said, you know, but there are other people here in this room who weren't, right?
		And, you know, they have names like Helmut or Jean-Pierre.
		And, you know, their ancestors weren't here in 1776.
		But it doesn't matter, he said.
		It doesn't matter because what makes you an American is a kind of electric cord that binds you to the principles of the founders, to the words of a declaration.
		And as long as you subscribe to that, you're an American.
		That's what I believe.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What about Gina's question related to some other historical systems that had kind of systems similar to the chivalry that you talk about from medieval Europe, you know, going back to the Ottoman Empire, which overlapped a lot with some of those systems.
		And even she mentioned ancient China, which also had its own rules around warfare and things like that.
		Did you compare that at all as you were doing the research for this book?
unidentified		No, heck, this was hard enough.
		You want me to do more work?
		No way, man.
		No, I wanted to look at stories that I thought would be familiar to readers.
		Fairy tales, some of them, whatever, you know, episodes from history that are familiar to us because they're part of our tradition.
		And I wanted to say liberalism arose from within that tradition.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We didn't actually get earlier to your story of the little match girl and why that was relevant.
unidentified		Yeah, let me tell that story.
		It's a story by Hans Christian Anderson.
		And it's written at a time when Europe is becoming, in his case, Denmark, really wealthy.
		But at the same time, you're seeing pockets of great, great poverty.
		And the contrast between the great wealth and the great poverty produces something novel, which is an instinct of kindness.
		It's like the invention of kindness.
		And it's told by Hans Christian Anderson in this little story about a girl, penniless, who survives by selling matches.
		And she's outside a restaurant, and she looks inside the window and she sees everybody eating, right?
		It's Christmas time.
		They're having these great meals and she's starving and she's out in the cold.
		And she lights a match to look inside and to warm herself.
		And then she lights all her matches.
		She freezes to death.
		So impossible, I think, to read that story or have that story read without being moved and recognizing a duty to take care of people who aren't doing so well in your society.
		That's a part of liberalism, too.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Michael is in Gainesville, Florida, on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
		I have two quick questions and two quick statements of fact.
		What is your opinion on prosperity and trickle-down?
		And what is your opinion on scientific racism?
		And my two quick statements of fact that I think you may be missing that influences your answers to those two is first, neither competition nor evolution optimize.
		That's a scientific fact.
		And also, lawyers teach, which you're in a law school, that truth is what you can convince a jury of.
		I wonder, I think you're teaching how many of your students have become politicians, because when they become politicians, those lawyers then pursue that as truth is whatever you can con the public into.
		And that is the source of our issues and difficulties, many of them right now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So Michael, before we get Mr. Buckley to respond, I just want to make sure that we understand what you mean by scientific racism.
unidentified		Yes, it's being taught.
		I'm in Florida.
		There's lectures going around to our universities.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And when Mr. Buckley spoke of his concerns about, and he used the word censorship and he referred to wokeness, what he's talking about is this gentleman coming and being able to speak freely and the students at those schools who pay money to attend those schools and they don't want people speaking untruths.
unidentified		For example, if you want to talk about how evolution shows that white people are superior, that isn't even how evolution works, and it's factually untrue.
unidentified		We don't teach evolution correctly in our textbooks because we put it in the back the parts that talked about confidence in being no evil.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I think scientific racism is an oxymoron, right?
		It's like, you know, military music.
		The two things don't go together.
		So I agree with you today.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I think Dan's upset with you for that one.
unidentified		Oh, well, okay.
		I also, you know, am a believer in what one can get out of evolutionary theories.
		I think that's important.
		And I don't disagree with that in any way.
		As to my teaching politicians, no, I teach people how to take security interests in personal property.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Robert is in Brooklyn, New York on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Robert.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I could understand the context of what you're saying.
		And I really love the way you use the word.
		I think the problem is the manipulation of the English language.
		Take for instance, Obamacare.
		If done with the personal concept of doing good, when you have lawyers and dark money in politics, millions of people lose their job because they decide to go private with insurance.
		That's one concept I like for you to answer somebody.
		The second concept is, take for instance, foreign money.
		The Israeli government could kill off millions of Palestinians, and then they come over here, put on their heels and their shoes and their jackets.
		And then there's anti-Semitic again.
		So I'm trying to figure out what do you think about people manipulating the English language to justify the concept of what they do.
		You know, somebody who wrote good stuff on that was George Orwell on the way in which the English language is used in such a way not to promote moral clarity but to do just the opposite, to muddy things up.
		So we've talked about that in the last hour.
		We've talked about how terms get thrown out and they have a lot of baggage attached to them.
		And sometimes the word is tossed out and they're really trying to slip in a lot of baggage that doesn't belong.
		So yeah, I agree with you.
		Look, I don't want to respond about the particular political points you made.
		Okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Donna is in Texas on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Donna.
unidentified		Yes.
		I'm here to talk about liberalism.
		And as in liberalism, we talk about that, you talk about advocating the freedom of the individual.
		And I want to talk about how as an individual like myself, America needs to see about people with disabilities, people with mental health issues.
		How can we really exercise liberalism, the freedoms of the people, if we're not reaching out to all of the people, black people, all races, all mental health, all disabilities?
		And I also think about how Trump and Imam Musk want to cut off disability and SSI and SSDI for 2025.
		And I'm saying that's cutting off their cutting out freedom of the people.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So this gets at the point you were making more about the role of sort of an inclusive society in the concept of liberalism.
unidentified		Yeah, I agree with Donna that in a liberal state, you don't want to have people left behind.
		You're looking for the common good.
		Think of it in terms of a family, right?
		You know, if you're the father or the mother of a family, you want all your kids to do well.
		And maybe you pay particular attention to a child who needs some extra help, right?
		You don't do that ignoring all the other children.
		You try in some murky way to make it all light up in a way that promotes the common good.
		There's no definition of that, right?
		And people are permitted to disagree.
		But I think you start with believing in a universal moral code where everybody counts.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Charleston, South Carolina on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		I do know the name Buckley way, way, way back.
		You know, I'm a 70-year-old guy and everything.
		I'm not sure if you're in that same family or not, but I do know that you're a professor at the Scalia School.
		Now, that's a really interesting guy to me.
		I'm not sure if he was.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So just to help folks understand what you mean, Mr. Buckley is a professor at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
		So go ahead, John.
		What's your question?
unidentified		Well, one question was, no, this is Scalia.
		This is real quick of Scalia.
		Was a person that really believed that myself being American black, that we would, they felt that we would do better if we were, you know, in the schools that we were traditionally in years and years and years ago and everything.
		And he might have been right on something with that because we gave up a lot when we integrated the schools because of all the schools.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So John, we're just about out of time for this segment.
		I understand that you're talking about Justice Scalia's perspective on segregation in public schools.
		But did you have a question specifically for Mr. Buckley today?
unidentified		Yes, I would like to know his opinion on that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		On segregated schools, I'm again.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's go to Roland in Glen Burney, Maryland, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Roland.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
		I like, you know, as Mark, the professor, you know, said something a little bit, because he said, the conservatives or the Republicans associates, you know, it's not the prize of this philosophy.
		I got mine.
		You get yours.
		You know, it's all about, you know, the whole during the elections, you know, the during the campaign, it was all about, you know, gas prizes, grocery prizes.
		And I'm pretty sure there's nothing much, you know, Trump is going to do about it.
		And I'm trying to understand, you know, it seems they always confuse sometimes it's all about exclusion and racism with being conservative.
		Because if you look at it, what exactly has West Virginia put into almost 80%, 90% for Trump?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Roland, just because we're just about out of time, I want to make sure I understand your point clearly.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are you asking Mr. Buckley about the association of conservatism with some of these things that you're talking about?
unidentified		Yes, because I feel like some of these people, they, you know, they just say they're conservative, but if you dip down, if you dig the if you dig dig down it, you know, it's all it seems, it's always about, you know, exclusive, you know, you know, just okay, I think we have your idea, and I'll let Mr. Buckley respond.
		Well, you know something?
		Like I mentioned before, I go back a ways.
		So rather than fixate on current politics, I tend to see myself as an old-fashioned Eisenhower Republican, you know, or maybe a JFK Democrat.
		I don't know.

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